


Innocence

by ununoriginal



Category: GLAY
Genre: M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-05-21
Updated: 1999-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ununoriginal/pseuds/ununoriginal





	Innocence

When I was young, all I ever wanted to be was a drummer.  To me, they were the coolest people around.  My family wasn’t aware of this at the time of course – whenever we got those stupid forms asking for your ambition, I dutifully put down something like government official, or inheriting my father’s shop.  My parents had their white-collar dreams for me, but me and Takuro, we had other plans.  We were going to form a band, and it was going to be one of the greatest Japan ever saw.

Though I have to say, Takuro stuck more firmly to our dream than I ever did.

Senior high happened to us, and he and I ended up in different schools, so we sort of… drifted.  Although I didn’t join the school band, I had a friend who would sneak me up to the music room so I could learn to play drums, even gave me a few pointers.  But all in all, it was half-hearted and leisurely.  The childhood promise casually tossed out summers ago had settled comfortably in the back of my mind.  And it would have stayed there for the rest of my life, and I would have trod down the well-worn path of so many others, had Takuro not looked me up again one day.

To this day, I still don’t truly understand why I agreed so quickly and decisively when he asked me to form a band with him.  Maybe deep down inside, the alarm was warning me that if I didn’t do something soon, I would eventually turn out to be one of those colourless, faceless individuals too tired to think of life beyond their work.  Or maybe I just wanted to have some fun.  All I know for sure is, I said, “Yes.”

I’ve never looked back since.

Yet, deciding to become part of a band wasn’t really the major turning point in my life.  That epiphany descended some time later, when I met him.

I don’t really recall how things went when Takuro first introduced the two of us, only the intense _feel_ that passed over me from that initial handshake, making me notice him right from the beginning.

On the other hand, he seemed admirably indifferent.  Later, I realised that it was just his general attitude towards everything and anyone.  And I believed then – I still do – that I would be the one to draw him out of that reserved shell.  But now I wonder, does he actually instil that impulse in everyone that he encounters?

That desire to please, to rile, to annoy, to tempt…  Anything so that he would look my way, and I would see something other than the blank coolness masking his face.

And that ultimately was what truly changed my life’s path.  A single whim of his.

I remember that day as one of despondency as we got yet another rejection.  Somehow only the two of us ended up in this tiny karaoke bar stuck at the end of a narrow alley.  Takuro had gone home earlier to mope in solitude and I had no idea where the others were. 

The drinks loosened his tongue and natural inhibitions, and he suddenly started complaining about our recent pathetic plight as well as how his previous band had fucked up, finally ending with a tirade about all the lousy vocalists he had ever had the misfortune to come upon.

I kept quiet, not inclined to take sides since Glay’s then-vocalist was also a friend of mine (though privately I agreed), but more to savour this rare moment when he let his guard down for me to see the real person inside. 

Maybe that was why I was so susceptible when he abruptly concluded that even _I_ could sing better and goaded me to go up to the mike on stage.  And I did, despite the fact that I’d never really sung in my whole 17 years and never really wanted to.

Yet that night…

As it always seems to be for me and first times, I don’t know what I sang anymore, but I can still see in my mind’s eye the heads turning to the stage where I nervously gripped the microphone with fingers tightened white; then the high that came from the genuinely appreciative applause.  It was an entirely different experience from being a drummer, peering somehow through the protective shield of the drum set, always that little bit removed from the world and its wildness.

But out there in the forefront, the waves crashed over me first, leaving me basking directly in the warm glow of their approval, without having it seemingly filtered and muted, like it was by the time it reached the drums.

I felt… at home.

Here – in a way I had never felt when what I held were drumsticks.

I remember these blurry images, and the roller-coaster rush of emotions, and I remember, when I looked out, searching for the shadowed corner he was seated in, the smile on his face.

Of course, it was dark then, so I could have imagined it, and my singing had not really pierced through his frosty exterior.  But at the time, I took it as a sign – that it was meant to be.

I began to believe things happen for a purpose when soon after that, our above-mentioned lousy vocalist opted to leave the band because of family opposition, leaving Glay vocalist-less yet again.

While I was still screwing up the courage to volunteer myself as the next lucky guy, he’d already suggested it, to my utter surprise.  I had not expected him to keep that incident in his mind at all.  I knew then, that his smile had been no fantasy.

Sometimes I wonder whether he knows the actual motive behind my singing: that I embarked on this road because of him, that virtually every song I sing, it is for and to him.  Because if it wasn’t for him and a drunken dare, I would not have found this harbour which exposes me so utterly to the world and yet enfolds me protectively within.  I wouldn’t have known how it is like to fly, to soar oh-so-high on the wings of adoration, cheers and screams.

Thank you, Hisashi.  From the very core of my being.

And thus I sing, because I want to see him smile again… and again… all the time, always, and know that I am the cause of it.


End file.
